'Fallout' Trailer: What's Different and The Same About The Video Game Adaptation for Prime Video
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- Last Updated: Saturday, 09 March 2024 23:50
- Written by Lupe R Haas
Westworld producer Jonathan Nolan adapts Fallout: A Post Nuclear role playing video game adaptation as a Prime Video series, Fallout. Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard serves as the series executive producer, and reveals he hand-picked Nolan for the adaptation. Nolan, series creators and showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, and stars Ella Purnell and Aaron Moten provide details about the new show.
The post nuclear fallout setting for the video game is a story of the haves and have-nots. Two hundred years after the apocalypse, the wealthy live in Vaults while others survive the wasteland. The tv series follows a new character Lucy, a vault dweller played by Ella Purnell, who leaves the comforts of home to learn about the outside world. "All she knows is what she was taught and what she's read in books that she has in the vault. It's limited. And then you put her on the Wasteland," says Nolan at a recent launch event for the trailer.
The role-playing video game premiered twenty-seven years ago in 1997. Howard says many producers approached him about adapting Fallout but there was only one person for the job.
"Well first, you know, people would approach us over, you know, I would say a 10-year period after Fallout 3 came out, you know, from 2009 on, to adapt Fallout to film or television. And we took a very cautious approach, and Jonah was somebody I was such a fan of the movies he did and the TV he was doing, and I actually, you know, had someone reach out. And when I first talked to Jonah, I mean, honestly, it was like someone I had known for a long time, you know, obviously played the games a ton, and his approach, right from the get-go, was in sync with what I was thinking."
Nolan admits his obsession with the game early on in his career almost derailed his writing. The screenwriter behind Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, The Prestige and creator of Westworld and Person of Interest had one worry going into the adaptation.
“We talked a lot about the power armor. The tone was a big thing. I think the tone was maybe the most challenging and the most intimidating thing for me. But working with, you know, with Geneva and Graham, you knew that we were going to be in a really good place with that incredibly ambitious story. On a technical level, the scope of the world and the power armor in particular was one of those things you go, oh, how on earth are we going to do that? But we got there."
There’s something else the series nailed down that overjoyed the producers.
“This is a small thing,” says producer Graham. “But if you saw in the trailer Chet, who gets splattered in blood, they got the Brylcreem just right. I know that's not as ambitious as the -- but when they got the Brylcreem in his hair just right, I was like, nailed it. And, you know, I guess we could have done that on a smaller show. [laugh] “
Showrunner Geneva Robertson-Dworet introduces us to the main characters, and what to expect.
“Well, I think it's not just the incredible tone, which is, as people have talked about, this unbelievable blend of action and comedy and just weirdness. But I think it's, you know, these incredibly prescient themes, factionalism, being maybe the most obvious. When you play the game Fallout, you go from settlement to settlement or from faction to faction. And that was something that we were really excited to manifest with our heroes. You know, Ella being the Vault Dweller, Aaron being the Brotherhood of Steel member, and Walton being sort of the character that, you know, nobody really cares about, the ghouls in the wasteland. But in a way that makes them, of course, the most empathetic”
Purnell describes her character as “naive,” “privileged” and “innocent.” She's essentially a newborn baby,” adds the actress. Her costar Aaron Moten’s character has lived in the wasteland all his life, and wrestles with a moral ambiguity.
“How you hold onto what is your unique, pure self, and how that changes, and how you discover what it is that you want.”
Howard commends the creative team for keeping the spirit of the original material.
“I mean, the authenticity they brought to it, the obsessive. We like to say we make the games that we obsess over every pixel. And Jonah and crew, they obsessed over every pixel [laugh] of every frame, just to make it authentic. And the other thing, watching that trailer and the trick with Fallout is it has so many different tones. It goes between the serious, the dramatic, and action, and some humor and nostalgic music and dramatic music. And I think the trailer does what the show does really well, which is it weaves those different things together in a very unique blend that only Fallout can bring. And they've done just an awesome job."
Fans won’t have to wait much longer with all eight episodes dropping April 11 on Prime Video.